Who are the worst college football hires of the last 30 years?

Ron Cooper at Eastern Michigan.
Jeff Woodruff at Eastern Michigan.
Jeff Genyk at Eastern Michigan.
TBD: Ron English at Eastern Michigan.

 

Beat me to it. He had some success, but made up for it by being a miserable prick.

 

Ron Cooper at Louisville as well.

I'll echo Kragthorpe at UofL. Have many programs fallen as far as fast? Nine straight bowls and then in the crapper.

Schnellenberger at Oklahoma was a joke.

John L. at MSU as well.

 

I'm willing to give Kragthorpe some slack since he broomed about 30 percent of Petrino's misfits, nimrods and thugs when he arrived. Problem is he didn't bring anyone in.

 

One day at Spartan Stadium, I'm walking down to the field from the press box with a recorder in one hand and a legal pad in the other, towards the end of a 45-7 or so beatdown handed on the Spartans. Going through the stands, one guy sees me and yells, "Is that a Fire John L. petition? I'll sign it!"

 

The other thing is - and this gets back to looking at results rather than the actual hire - Kragthorpe on paper appeared to be a very good hire for Louisville at the time he was hired.

 

Everyone at Alabama from Bryant onward has won 10 games at least once. But trust me, Saban has taken that place to an entirely different level.

Rein had a really good run at NC State and was only 34 or so when LSU hired him. So yeah, he'd have probably had a nice, long run there.

 

I'm not so willing to give Zook too much credit for the recruiting he did at UF. After Spurrier turned that place into a national power, there are few places where it is easier to recruit. USC might be the easiest.

 

The ones that come to my mind are:

Lane Kiffin @ Tennessee ... seriously. What a debacle. And he didn't do much in his brief time there. Everything a coaching hire shouldn't be, this was. Just like with Kiffin and the Raiders, so much went wrong so quickly.

Gary Crowton @ Brigham Young ... destroyed an NFL offense and a college program all within a short period of time

Bill Doba @ Washington State ... a longshot program like that needs all the help it can get, you don't just punt it to a doddering coordinator who'll fall into all the traps of WSU's situation that it takes a good coach to avoid.

Buddy Teevens @ Tulane and Stanford ... another nice guy who was just plain incompetent. Meek is the best word to describe him and his programs.

John Mackovic @ Arizona ... what were they thinking? No chance of this working out.

Larry Coker @ Miami ... A slow but epic fall from greatness to mediocrity, and a total loss of control over the off-field actions of the players.

 

Yep. I liked Todd Dodge, but couldn't figure out what UNT was thinking when they hired him.

 

Was Crowton the fool he changed BYU's uniform colors?

 

I think too much has been made about Kiffin. He didn't do badly at Tennessee and he has his work cut out for him at USC. If he's a bad coach, he'll be exposed.

I think if Kiffin was 10 years older nobody would have made such a big deal out of the way he left Tennessee.